


Salt Water of Tears or Ocean Derived?

by Peekaboomikayuu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 09:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8200897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peekaboomikayuu/pseuds/Peekaboomikayuu
Summary: Levi remembers nothing, but he can tell Eren time and time again that these so called wings of freedom are surely what’s trapping him and they will not catch him when he falls in to the tide.





	

Levi didn’t remember finding Eren on a ledge, but after some thought he concluded that maybe that’s where Eren had been all along. Since the moment he opened them ‘til the moment they first settled upon Levi, his vacant eyes had seen not in to the future, but instead over the edge. Where others saw a job, a family, a dream- Eren saw the flat, eerie calm of an ocean far below. ‘I want to see the sea.’ He’d say.

The doctors explained he just wanted to drown in it.

Eren had always been fixated on a past life. He’d speak of giant men that devoured little men, and of little men who devoured souls. The scouting legion, he’d call them- imploring with wild gestures and fractured memories. ‘Trust me, Levi. In flesh, we were taken by the Titans, but in spirit, we were taken by the scouts.’

He always insisted that Levi had been there too. He was humanities strongest, untouchable and cold. He was pale as the sea foam and had power like the waves. He wore the insignia of the little men’s legion, of the scouts. ‘The wings of freedom Levi! They belonged to us. How can you not remember?’

Levi remembers nothing, but he can tell Eren time and time again that these so called wings of freedom are surely what’s trapping him and they will not catch him when he falls in to the tide.

Eren does not want to be caught. He sows seeds and harvests stories of some Armin and Mikasa who wait for him in the lingering surf. They call to him like sirens, singing that he's overdue. ‘They’re sad without me. We made a promise and I haven’t fulfilled it.’ That’s all he ever talks about. A promise that’s undone, an obligation not yet followed through.

‘You of all people should understand obligation Levi. You understood it when you slit my nape and you will have to understand it now. If you can kill the man you love, you would be in this life, like the last, a desperate hypocrite not to watch him kill himself.

That was the day Eren had finally been admitted in to a psychiatric ward, and there he had stayed and began to fade. Although classified as having strong, irrepressible, suicidal tendencies, Eren would only go one way; in the ocean. And so he was kept away from the churning water and its beckoning call. He was supervised day in and day out, nurses rotating with his parents rotating with Levi. There was a constant cycle of care but care could only go so far and this Levi knew as he watched his lover wither into nothing. Who was Eren Jaeger without passion? Without fuel or spark? Stripped of his independence and willed into a smooth, safe life.

‘I am no one.’

Levi looked up to find Eren brewing like an impending storm with sparks on his tongue but no thunder left in his hollowed out chest.

‘All I ever wanted, was to see the ocean with them. To see the world beyond the walls with you.’

A flood warning echoed in the breaking dam of his words.

‘And now I am banned from the ocean, and we are trapped again between these walls. I’m under supervision, people are afraid of me, and I’m unable to make anyone happy. It's as if I'm destined to replay the same tragic events in each life time. What am I if I have no more purpose?’

After everything he’d been through to avoid this pitiful end, he realised it had been inevitable.

Levi encased the trembling boy in a familiar grip.

‘You are Humanity’s last hope Eren. You might have been half monster but you were always fully human and it shows, it shows so much.’

Eren froze in his grasp. Breathing silent. Movement stilled. Then a smile full of too many teeth he had not seen for an age took its throne upon the Titans face.

‘I love you corporal, but I think it’s time we go now. Don’t you?”

Maybe it _was_ time. The enemy was defeated, and they had nothing left to give.

The frigid wind burned like fire against his cheeks, the ocean spittle spraying about in a frenzy. Levi stared down in to oblivion and gripped Eren’s hand tighter. He was here, there was no turning back. The screams of the sea begging for its gift, a lifetime of patience exhausted, the cacophony of the icy vastness filled his ears. Eren had ran straight to the edge and Levi had willingly followed. In truth, it was where they had been all along.

Eren was his last hope, his last wish, his first and last love. Now he would use his last breath to say goodbye.

‘It’s been an honour serving with you cadet. Arlert and Ackerman will be glad to have us home.’

The loss ached like teething in this new world they had never quite gotten used to. 

‘I love you, Levi.’

The spilling of scarlet droplets as a thumb is bitten.

‘I love you too Eren.’

The fall, and then; a glimpse of what is beyond the walls.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get back in to the swing of things so here's a gross, horribly written - 'I'm trying' angst fic because I'm feeling down and I love exploring the implications of a scarring past life on my babes. Please be kind? It's late so this really could be so bad, I mean like the worst. Anyway, my other fics will update I promise I'm trying, life's hard.


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